According to historians, Adolf Hitler wanted to promote his belief in an Aryan master race by symbolically linking the 1936 Berlin Games to the ancient Greek gods and rituals, hence the carrying of the flame from Olympia to Germany. The first relay was chronicled on film by Hitler’s propagandist, Leni Riefenstahl.

We bring you this brief history lesson because, as the Olympic torch makes its only North American appearance today in San Francisco, it will be met by thousands of protesters decrying China’s human rights record. In response to similar demonstrations Monday in Paris, the Chinese government complained that a “small group” of Tibetan activists was seeking to politicize an event that should have been a tribute to the love of sport.

Nonsense. From its very beginning, the torch relay has been deeply political, a promotional extravaganza for the Games’ host country. Chinese officials are well aware of this, having designed the longest relay in Olympic history — an 85,000-mile, six-continent tour, meant to highlight China’s vast economic and political might. The protests are a welcome reminder to Beijing that it can’t tailor public opinion in the rest of the world the way it can at home.

The editorial asks the protestors in San Francisco to “conduct themselves with more politesse than the Parisians,” but it also urges them “to show Beijing in no uncertain terms what people of conscience think about its behavior.”

The Chinese Communists know what the rest of the world thinks of them. As long as they can maintain their power, they don’t care. Look at the propaganda disaster at Tien A Minh square. As long as they are acting within what they consider their own country, it doesn’t matter to them how many Tibetans are killed or arrested.

Where’s Mitt Romney when you need him? He allegedly performed miracles in the winter of 2002 at Salt Lake City. Surely cheating ice skating judges are a minor thing compared to human rights in Tibet. If this flame thing is the legacy of Joseph Goebbels, I suggest we arm ourselves with buckets of water and proudly snuff the light.

Good point about the torch’s origins. This was true four years ago as well, but no mention then. The writer therefore seeks to equate China with the Nazis. Let me remind: the Nazis were sui generis. Simply desiring to promote one’s country in an admittedly silly and derivative manner is boring but does not adduce to world domination.

I think that is nonsense. We European descendents forcibly took North America from Natives and took Texas and the rest of the Southwest from Mexico and now Absolut vodka apologizes for pointing this latter point out. European descendants (of which I am one) took over Texas and California equivalent to the Han Chinese in Tibet which was part of China long before Texas was American. We wouldn’t stand for any uprising of Mexicans or Native Americans because we helped their lot, right? We bitterly protest as the Chinese do the same thing in their own territory? No wonder we look so judgmental and arrogant to the rest of the world as well as show a lack of introspection and sense of fairness. Maybe we should rid the entire world of dictators by force once we settle on a definition that excludes our own actions?

Well then, we (worldwide) should do away with the torch ceremony. Hitler was the most evil of humans in the last 100 years. Promoting a rite of his doing is, at best, a denunciation of the rights of all human beings. Almost 12 million people died at this man’s hands. Maybe there is a similarity between him and China, but…

The Olympics should not be boycotted. So many athletes have trained hard for years and have come so far in their fields to perform a “once in a lifetime” event and should not be punished for another’s human rights record. The athletes should not be penalized period.

Remember, Jesse Owens threw his victory, unintentionally of course, back in Hitler’s face with his four Gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics! (Hitler refused to be in the stands during the winning parade where Jesse would have passed by him. So much for the perfection of the Aryan Race.) If you’re interested, read “Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics,”

According to an email I received this morning from my niece who lives in Paris and participated in the yesterday’s demonstrations, Parisians like herself intended to be very polite and simply, peacefully, line the streets of Paris to watch the torch relay while carrying small Tibet flags to show their support for Tibet. Unfortunately things turned otherwise, and ugly, as overwhelming police forces, seemingly in concert with Chinese officials, assaulted them unprovoked, taking their Tibetan flags away from them by force and preventing them by any means (physical barriers, tear gas, brutality) to approach the torch itinerary. Blame French and Chinese authorities, as well as police repression and brutality, not the Parisians.

Human rights are uncompromising conditions of life. Rights are not optional so they are not a politcal bartering chip. Any human rights violation is an assult against all humanity. China is in violation of human rights and needs to be confronted by any non violent means available.

George W, Bush is as guilty as the Chinese government in violating human rights.

The only way to properly protest both China’s human rights record and their production of children’s toys tainted with lead paint, toothpaste made with antifreeze and a horrible pollution record would be to boycott their Games, but sadly, that won’t happen.

let’s take a look at what the US government IS doing if you really want to apply the same standards to China: US Marines slaughtered at least 20 civilians in Haditha last November. On Saturday, May 13th, 2006, at 10:00 p.m., US Forces accompanied by the Iraqi National Guard attacked the houses of Iraqi people in the Al-Latifya district south of Baghdad by an intensive helicopter shelling. This led the families to flee to the Al-Mazar and water canals to protect themselves from the fierce shelling. Then seven helicopters landed to pursue the families who fled … and killed them. The number of victims amounted to more than 25 martyrs. US forces detained another six persons including two women named Israa Ahmed Hasan and Widad Ahmed Hasan, and a child named Huda Hitham Mohammed Hasan, whose father was killed during the shelling.

No one would be talking today about Nazi Germany and the Berlin Olympics — except that Beijing appears to be bending over backwards to remind us of the Nazi’s political use of the Olympics and the Olympic torch — and fueling the current protests along Beijing’s torch route.

Since the Chinese government began its crackdown on protesting monks in Tibet, just days before the lighting of the torch in Greece, the Chinese have stubbornly kept to their original plan — one Hitler would have approved of — of filming the Olympic torch being carried by Chinese runners through the ancient Tibetan capital of Lhasa, and up to the summit of Tibet’s Mount Everest.

To those now calling for the Olympics not to become “politicized,” one can only ask in reply: what could be more political than taking the Olympic torch to an occupied Tibet currently closed to the foreign press and tourists, and still under a de-facto martial law?

The best way to ‘correct’ any Chinese misbehavior is to reward them approriately because the root cause of most of them is money.

For example, to complete get rid of lead paint problem in toys, just pay them whatever you pay now and pay the price difference between that and a US product if the product has completely satisfied the US requirements. For examle, if an American made toy is sold for $10 and the equivalent Chinese made toy is sold for $2, then pay $2 up front. When the toy is shown to completely met the US requirement (other than being made in the US), the pay them another $8. This way, they will have all the incentive in the world to make products as good as the American.

Another example: to get rid of human rights problem, just allow *any* disenfranchised Chinese citizen to freely immigrate to the US. This way, they can enjoy all the human rights given to US citizens. Unlike the old Soviet Union where leaving the motherland was a crime, I’m sure the Chinese government is more than happy to fly them out of China free of charge.

First, Hitler’s Germany (and its citizens) were complicit in Nazi ideals, pogroms and political agenda. The average Chinese citizen in not complicit it its government policies. In fact most of Chinese citizenry do not agree with its governments belligerent ways.

Second, a boycott only damages the world’s athletes who compete based on skill. The camaradie spans borders and builds worldly good will. Punishing them for old men’s foibles is just plain wrong.

Finally, it is certainly fine to demonstrate during this pre-game adventure but it has very little bearing on the spirit of the games.

In ref to #2 “The only way to properly protest… would be to boycott the Games”

And thus putting the complete burden of protest on the tiny fraction of people all across the world who have devoted huge amounts of effort, time, etc. to this competition, and letting everyone else off the hook.

If we really cared, we’d boycott China ALL the time. Goods, services, visas, etc. But that would mean ALL of us paid, not just the few who are (un?)lucky enough to qualify/be selected for this particular Olympics…

Authoritarian China is not worthy of holding the Olympic Games judging from their human rights record against Tibet and other minorities, military expansion and threats toward our loyal democratic allies in the Pacific Rim, such as Taiwan and Japan.

All the democratic countries in the western world should take the lead to boycott the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympic to remind China of Human Rights Violation and threat to the world peace. However, the games should not be boycotted in order not to hurt the innocent players.

Everyone remembers the 1968 Black Power salutes on the medal platform at the 1968 Olympics.

The Beijing Olympics call for a similar silent sign of protest. For guests in the stands, for athletes, for officials to voice their disapproval of the Chinese government.

No banners or T-shirts necessary, you can show you support for universal human rights (in Tibet, and everywhere) by holding up your hand with the international sign-language sign for the letter “R.”

The “R” stands for human RIGHTS. It is simple for anyone to do: fingers crossed, hand otherwise in a fist. (The hand sign “R” looks like a peace sign, with the fingers tangled. An appropriate symbol for this moment!)

We are the Chinese. The Chinese are us. Then again in 1905 an observer might have thought that the French, British and Germans were all the same, tied together in an ever expanding economic system of trade and debt. Pointless demonstrations is not the a wise response to a complex and important relationship. The future of the world is now dependent on China in a way that it was dependent on the USSR in the 50’s & 60’s. Woe is us if we do not establish a friendship, woe is the world if we come to conflict. Since there is no organic source of conflict then it is only human nature we have to overcome.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that the Tibetan issue was caused by extremists who tried to kick out other races from Tibet by using ‘cultural genocide’ as an excuse. By their actions, they are promoting a belief that their Tibetan Buddhist culture is much more important than Han Chinese culture and the Hui Muslim culture. This type of racist attitude demonstrated by the so-called Buddhist monks is similar to Hitler’s belief of an Aryan race that is superior to other ethnic groups’ beliefs and culture.